She didn’t care.
The clack of high heels on wooden floorboards drew Serena from her musing as the woman walked past without a word. The front door shut behind her as Max emerged from the bedroom, tying his bathrobe.
The annoyance in his expression disappeared, replaced by a smug smile as his gaze met Serena’s. ‘Darling, so pleased to see you decided to come back.’
‘Yes, your friend was most welcoming.’
A rare flash of sheepishness at being caught out crossed his face before he shrugged with that elegant, open-handed gesture she remembered all too well. ‘A man has needs. You understand that, but here you are now and—’
Serena put up a hand to stem the flow of words. ‘Just so we’re clear about this, I’m in Sydney for a very particular reason, and it’s not to get back with you, Max. We were over long before you called it off. I was just slow in realising it.’
Max frowned and sat on the sofa. As he crossed one leg over the other and stretched his arms along the sofa back, his robe fell open, revealing a little paunch that his immaculately cut suits disguised.
Uncharitably, she put it down to his over-indulgence in cognac, and red wine with lunch and dinner. Not that any of it mattered anymore.
Max drummed the fingers of his right hand on the sofa.
Another of his little habits she now realised had contributed to her tension when they’d been together. Too often, Max’s disappointment in her less than thorough housekeeping, or her failure to be home waiting for him, had been revealed through those fingers. Drumming, tapping, accusing her of not being good enough.
Ending their relationship was the nicest gift he could have given her.
Pinning a smile on her face, she relaxed into the armchair.
Max frowned and the drumming fingers ceased. ‘Then why did you drive all the way here?’
Did she have the right to ask on behalf of Paul? He’d made it very clear he didn’t want her help. In effect, he’d told her to butt out, so what was she doing here now?
She shrugged off the thought. Whatever happened, she would do what she could to help Paul. If it worked out as she hoped it would, he didn’t need to know she was responsible.
‘You have connections and contacts; I have a favour to ask.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
‘… and so, the best we believe possible is ten cents in the dollar.’ Felicity Robinson looked up from her notes and her gaze panned across the meeting of creditors.
A tendril of hope and excitement unfurled in Paul’s stomach as he picked up the pages of the proposal to form a co-op. Taking centre stage today would be almost a pleasure, because the plan was going to save Mindalby.
‘I understand this is not what you may have hoped to hear, but given how few assets were actually owned by the company, the fact that there is any money for distribution is a positive.’
Hayden raised his head from his hands. ‘I have a slim chance of making deadline if I get my cotton out today, but this waiting for all debts to be paid, this is bullshit.’ He thumped both hands on the table and stood. His chair clattered to the floor in the silence following his outburst.
‘Mate, don’t. I can solve this.’ Paul wished he’d sat beside his brother instead of on opposite sides of the table, wished he’d had time to explain the co-op idea more fully. He should have foreseen that outburst, but he was off his game since Serena had gone to Sydney. Didn’t Hayden realise none of what the assessor said mattered? Didn’t he understand that once Paul presented the co-op idea and a vote was taken, everything changed?
‘According to these guidelines, you won’t get anything.’ Hayden swung around and jabbed a finger at the assessor. ‘How can you stand there and tell people you’re taking away their livelihoods and there’s nothing they can do about it?’
Paul stood and thrust the papers under Hayden’s nose. Bold capital letters, centred on the cover page, proclaimed the Mindalby Cotton Co-operative idea was reality. ‘Hayden, look at—’
‘Bugger this, I’m off to the mill.’ Hayden knocked his hand away without looking at the proposal and stormed out, leaving Paul standing there gaping after his brother like everyone else.
The outer door slammed, breaking Paul’s inertia. ‘I’ve got to go after him, stop him.’
Josh gripped his arm. ‘You can’t go, not yet, Paul. You have to present the idea on our behalf.’
Paul shoved the co-op papers into Josh’s hands. ‘He’s my brother. I can’t let him do something stupid. You make the presentation if I’m not back.’ He followed in Hayden’s wake, but his brother had disappeared by the time Paul reached the outside. He raced to his ute, slammed it into gear and took off towards the mill.
Half the town was waiting for news from the meeting, if the number of vehicles was any indication. A truck was pulled onto the verge a little distance from the mill. Front on, Paul couldn’t see if it was one of Tox Ryder’s or a Stone’s Transport. Poor bugger probably couldn’t get through the crowd. Paul parked a block away and jogged towards the front gates.
A screech of metal brought him to a panicked halt. The crowd spilled across Woodburn Road, and loud voices demanded access to the yard. Had his brother snapped and done what he’d threatened to do days earlier?
Heart in his mouth, Paul climbed onto a nearby bull bar and hunted for Hayden.
A howl went up from the crowd and placards bobbed erratically as the crowd seemed to surge forward. ‘Unfair’ and ‘Give us back our cotton’ were all he could make out.
He scanned the bobbing heads, unable to distinguish Hayden’s dark hair amid the pulsing, pushing frenzy of humanity.
The front gates hung in a buckled mess and Paul’s gut roiled. Hayden had carried out his threat.
A police vehicle pulled up beside him and three officers, the entire Mindalby police force, got out and made their way through the crowd.
Paul followed in their wake. His head throbbed with the pain of knowledge, of failure. He’d failed his brother again. Hayden was probably even now being handcuffed by the police and cautioned as to his rights.
Paul’s desperate gaze snagged on two men standing apart from the crowd like an island of calm in the maelstrom. Cole Mitchell tossed a tinnie to Hayden and relief washed over Paul. His brother wasn’t in the vanguard breaking into the mill.
Darrell Ryder appeared beside him, his meaty hand clapping Paul’s shoulder. ‘Oi, Paul, tell your brother to text me when this lot is sorted, will you? I’ve got to leave soon and he wants to get your cotton on my last trip out today.’
‘His cotton, not mine. What do you mean? Are they releasing the cotton?’
‘Yep. All the unprocessed bales. The assessor phoned; they’ve started the process already.’
‘Thanks, Darrell.’
Scarcely daring to believe, Paul tipped his head to look at the sky. Everything wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
But the process had begun.
He tried to wrap his head around the possibilities. His brother had put in the hard yakka, made the decisions, and suffered the sleepless nights. It was Hayden’s cotton. Paul had made his choice when he set up the saddlery.
As he made his way through the crowd towards his brother, a weight lifted from his shoulders. Carey Cotton would survive and go from strength to strength under his brother’s guidance.
It was time to turn his attention to fixing things with Serena.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Serena pulled off the highway into a dusty servo, needing caffeine and a stretch but wanting the drive to be over. Her concept of travel and appreciation of the vast open spaces of the Australian outback had changed since that first trip to Mindalby. The fact she knew where she was this time helped her dig deep for the final push.
As she grabbed her handbag, her phone rang. Checking the caller ID, she answered her mother’s call. ‘Hi, Mum. Couple more hours and I’ll be back in Mindalby.’
Before her mother responded, Serena heard a dog bark in the
background and a male voice shushed the animal. ‘Good. Well, when you get here, we have plenty to celebrate. Have you spoken to Paul yet?’
Serena wrapped an arm around her stomach and pressed hard. His rejection sliced like a knife, the physical ache all that remained of her hopeless attraction to him. With luck, she could avoid Paul while she continued her search for her father.
If she continued.
Maybe she’d give up and take the rest of her holiday somewhere warm and seaside. Somewhere far from Mindalby and Paul Carey.
‘No. I told you he doesn’t want me around. He made that clear before I left for Sydney.’
‘And yet, you went ahead with your plan anyway. Doesn’t that tell you anything?’
‘That I’m a masochistic control freak?’
‘When you get back, you need to talk to him.’
‘We’ll see.’ Preferring to avoid further discussion about Paul, Serena added, ‘I need to find a loo. See you soon, Mum.’
Ten minutes later, Serena was back concentrating on the endless grey bitumen unrolling ahead as she drove the last stretch of highway. Her mission to Sydney had succeeded beyond her expectations. She could have stayed there, as Max suggested, and let her mother catch the bus back. Once Max had accepted she wasn’t coming back to him, they’d managed a polite dinner together at one of the top seafood restaurants on the Quay while Serena negotiated Max’s help.
‘If you’ve made up your mind to work in Sydney, you don’t have to drive back you know.’
‘I know, but I have unfinished business. If my father is still alive, I’d like to find him, for the right reasons this time.’
Max had kissed her forehead. Now they were no longer involved, his controlling tendency had been replaced by his usual charm. She much preferred their new connection. ‘And I forgive you telling that huge porky of a lie about my father, but we’d never work out.’
‘I hope you come back when you’ve found him. You’re wasted in the back of beyond.’
‘There’s nothing to keep me in Mindalby.’
It was useless to wish there was.
She switched on the radio and let the music carry her the rest of the way, but as she turned into Paul’s driveway, her stomach clenched and exhaustion set in. She turned off the engine and sat in the car, eyes closed and head resting on the headrest. She’d tell Paul the good news and the bad news, and then go home to be comforted by her mother.
How hard could this be? Telling him she’d interfered in his business—again—and, ‘By the way, my father is probably the man who almost killed your father’.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Paul walked through the saddlery to his workshop and switched on the kettle. The creditors’ meeting couldn’t have had a better resolution. ‘Who’d have thought we’d raise a couple of hundred thousand dollars in a couple of weeks, hey, Jack?’
He turned to the empty corner and his good mood evaporated. How hard was it to break the habit of a lifetime? He bowed his head and leaned on the edge of the sink. Why did bad memories follow good news? Why not the other way around?
Two short, sharp knocks on the door roused him and he pulled the door open. Good news stood on his doorstep in a pair of high-heeled black boots and baggy purple jumper.
‘Serena, I’m glad to see you.’ He felt hope surging through his veins, singing in his blood. She was back.
‘Are you?’ Her arms were wrapped across her stomach and her eyes—
‘You look exhausted. Did you drive straight through from Sydney?’
‘Pretty much. May I come in?’
‘No need to ask. Coffee?’
‘No thanks. Look, Paul, this isn’t a social visit. I’ve a confession to make and you need to know before—’ She looked away, a picture of dejection and loss, shut in and closed off from him.
He raised a hand towards her.
She flinched, wrapping her arms more tightly around her waist, and he dropped his hand and stepped back. Their parting had been unpleasant. He’d been an arse and she probably expected more of the same. But he’d show her he wasn’t. ‘Come in and sit down. I’m sure nothing you say can be that bad.’
‘You won’t like it, and I won’t blame you at all if you kick me out after I tell you.’
‘A confession? Reckon I can guess. Hmm, is it about what you did with those photos of my work?’ He’d tell her about the phone conversation with the bloke from the Cotton Board—after she’d unburdened herself. ‘Sit down. I promise I won’t bite.’
Her steps were jerky, like a robot, unlike her normal bouncy walk, and a tingling sense of unease spider-walked its way down his spine.
‘So, what did you do with the photos that has you so uptight?’
Her tongue touched the corner of her mouth before she sat straight and met his gaze. ‘You said to do whatever the hell I wanted with them. I showed them to a senior manager at the Cotton Board.’
Maintaining a straight face was tough as relief poured through him. This was only about the photos. He pushed away the spider-doubt and tried to look stern. ‘I gave you permission so what’s the problem?’
‘They’re preparing to move into new headquarters and, in line with their policy of supporting Australian artists, they’re looking for new works—large pieces mainly—to hang. They loved your work.’ The tiniest uptilt of her lips betrayed her. She was happy with her success.
Grateful she had believed in him so much he reached for her hands, but they clenched. His grin chased away the pretence of a frown and he decided to let her off the hook. ‘I had a phone call last night. The acquisitions manager is coming to look at the panels in a few days.’
Her mouth dropped open and she blinked. ‘You knew already? You’re not mad at me going behind your back?’
A certain mellowness ran through him, a feeling that nothing could go wrong now Serena was back in town. Now she’d confessed.
If he hadn’t been feeling raw with the loss of Jack, they would have discussed her idea and maybe even travelled to Sydney together. ‘No. I have you to thank for that opportunity. But how did you swing it?’
Her death grip relaxed and she leaned both elbows on the bench. ‘Max’s chief editor ran a side story on the mill closure and Max interviewed the CEO of the Cotton Board. It was thanks to Max I got an interview with a senior manager at the company. They love your work, and the fact it’s all about cotton has them very excited.’ She frowned at him. ‘I can’t believe you’re not angry with me.’
‘Seems that concern didn’t stop you trying to help. I’m grateful. But I’m surprised your ex actually offered to help. Have you two settled your differences?’
Waiting for her answer was like being poised on the edge of a high cliff. The view might be wonderful, but if she answered the wrong way, the drop would break him.
‘We have. We agreed we’re better friends than partners.’
Whoosh. Air pumped into his lungs like he’d surfaced after diving deep in the ocean. ‘That’s good. Great.’
Better than great, it was fantastic. It cleared the way for him to apologise and get on with getting to know Serena properly.
‘Do you want to come to the pub and celebrate? We can count it as our first proper date if you like and—’
Her body tensed at his words, so tight she looked more like a statue than the warm, responsive woman he’d kissed on Trish’s verandah. Shadows chased through her green eyes, and suddenly he felt as though he was poised on the highest point of a rollercoaster and staring down a drop of mammoth proportions.
‘There’s one other thing, Paul. I should have told you—I tried to tell you earlier. I came to Mindalby to find my father.’
‘I guessed that after dinner that night at the farm.’ He covered her clenched hand. Her skin was freezing and a tremor ran through her body. Hurrying on, he sought to reassure her. ‘I also guessed you thought your father might be Dad or Uncle Josh, but it’s not. You have nothing to worry about on that score.’
Gre
en eyes were the only patch of colour in a face so pale and sad, a premonition worthy of his mother at the peak of her skills hit him like a punch in the solar plexus.
‘I think my father is Greg Frankston.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Paul tipped over the edge and plummeted down the slope of that damned emotional rollercoaster into an abyss so black and dark, he’d never see the light of day again.
Frankston’s daughter?
Shock glued his feet to the floor. The bench held him upright.
He’d fallen for Frankston’s daughter.
Blindly he groped for something, anything, to break the nightmare of her revelation.
‘I’m so sorry. I should have told you, but—’
He heard the scrape of her stool, the tapping of her heels on the floor, the door opening.
‘Why didn’t you?’ He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t bear to see those green eyes, the same colour as Frankston’s—her father, oh God.
‘Because you already had a lot to deal with. I didn’t want to add to your troubles.’
‘You came to my home, met my family—my father. How could you? And at the picnic Dad collapsed because you let that bastard near him.’ Serena’s betrayal numbed him, angered him. She’d made him care for her, and brought harm to those he loved. Worse, she’d done it deliberately, knowingly.
It was unforgivable.
Anger simmered low in his belly. ‘It isn’t a coincidence that both you and your father arrived on the same day, is it? What was this, part of his grand plan to get revenge on my family for giving him what he deserved?’
‘No, I didn’t know him, I don’t know him. Paul, I’m not like him. I just want—’
‘Get out of my workshop, Serena. Get out of Mindalby and out of my life.’
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